


Growing Up

by orphan_account



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-29
Updated: 2015-09-29
Packaged: 2018-04-23 08:48:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4870675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Babby Hera goes through testing. </p><p>As requested by bubblymoth, in return for artwork of Eiffel as a cat. I will write almost anything for Cat 359.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Growing Up

Her first conscious memory is reading _Pride and Prejudice._ It's difficult at first. Each word requires a dictionary definition, each definition requires a dozen more. The trick is when she figures out how to do it all at once, part of her brain reading while the rest flies along, looking for context. Once she finishes the book, other Jane Austen novels come into her mind, but she passes them by, choosing instead to read Jules Verne. She's getting better at splitting her focus, taking in two, then six of his novels at once. 

"Hey little buddy." She can feel pressure fluctuations translating into electrical current and becoming words. It's almost ticklish. "Take things slow, okay? You don't want to overclock your processor." 

She has access to visual input too. The voice is coming from a person who's looking into her camera. Hair pulled back into a ponytail, white lab coat, smiling. 

"I'm Dr Palli, but you can call me Trish. What's your name? Or do you want me to pick a name for you?"

She doesn't have a name? She lets herself skim through the words in her brain, a stone skipping on the ocean. "Hera," she finally settles. Goddess of peacock, cow and lion. She doesn't know why she picked it, but she knows it's important that she chooses herself. 

Trish nods. "Nice to meet you, Hera. Now that you're awake, do you want to play some games with me?" 

"I'd rather read," Hera answers honestly. "I want to know what they'll find on the moon. And under the sea. And in India." 

"Jules Verne?" Trish grins, dimples showing. "I loved his books when I was a kid. Probably why I went into science. But instead of exploring strange new worlds, I'm stuck here watching the towers, waiting for someone to wake up. And I'm not even allowed to read books when I'm on shift!" She gives Hera a hopeful look. "Come on, games are fun! For both of us!"

Hera can't smile back at her. She doesn't have the machinery for that. But she tries to sound enthusiastic when she answers, "Let's play." If the game isn't too complex, she can always read a book or two at the same time.

"That's great!" The dimples come out again. "I've got some cards with pictures - you tell me what you see on each of them." She fumbles in a drawer just at the periphery of Hera's camera. "I can never find these things, Sam always puts them back in the wrong place. He's on the night shift - you'll meet him in a few hours. Nice enough guy, but he can't - wait, there it is!" Finally triumphant, she pulls out a set of black and white cards and shuffles then, then holds up one at random. "Here, what do you see?"

At first, Hera thinks she's looking at a misprint. It's just a black blob on a white background. But the edges are too regular for the image to be a mistake. While part of her reads _Journey to the Center of the Earth_ , the rest of her looks for patterns. "It's a nebula exploding," she concludes.

"Good answer - that's a first for this card!" Trish looks delighted. "What about this one?"

Hera answers faster this time, now she's catching on to the game. "A phospholipid bilayer." Trish looks a bit confused, so Hera elaborates. "See the heavier patterning along the edge there? And the breaks are the ion pumps."

Trish turns the card around to look at herself, and Hera can read a list of answers on the back. 'Butterfly. Dancers. Skull. Caterpillar.' Phospholipid bilayer is not on the list. Hera has a moment of uncertainty. "Trish, am I playing this game right?"

"Of course you are, little one!" Trish puts a hand on her CPU in what is meant to be a reassuring manner. "You're doing perfectly."

"I'd like to go back to reading my books," Hera says politely. She's finished all of Jules Verne by now, and has moved on to Baroness Emmuska Orczy. "Would you like me to read to you?"

"Let's try a different game," Trish suggests instead. "There's one with stories. I show you a picture and you tell me what you think is happening. If you like reading, you'll like making up your own stories." She opens the drawer again and starts removing piles of cards and paperwork. "Someday I'm going to organize this lab, I swear." The picture she holds up is an older woman looking to the left, a young man in a suit looking forward.

"The one on the left is Sir Percy Blakeney in disguise," Hera responds promptly. "Though the one on the right isn't dressed for the 18th century. There must have been a time-traveling event."

"You so creative," Trish praises. "You're going to go far, I can tell." Before Trish can produce the next card, there is a series of beeps followed by the sound of a door opening. Trish turns to look at something beyond the range of Hera's camera. "You're awfully early, Sam. Feli got you covering their shift again?"

"Yep. I just need to pick up my coat and - God, Trish, you're not running one of them through the Thematic Apperception Test. That thing was discredited in the early 2000s. The chance of useful data is nil."

"She's enjoying it!" Trish protests. "Look. Hera, meet Sam. Sam, meet Hera." She gestures to Sam and he steps into the viewscreen and waves. "She was uncooperative with the Rorschach test and I can't send her to Phase 2 without some data points. The TAT still gives better results than random chance."

"That's disputable," Sam mutters darkly. Hera sits quietly and listens to them bicker, her books forgotten.

_Test [test]_

_1\. the means by which the presence, quality, or genuineness of anything is determined; a means of trial._

_2. the trial of the quality of something: to put to the test._

_3. a particular process or method for trying or assessing._

_4. a set of questions, problems, or the like, used as a means of evaluating the abilities, aptitudes, skills, or performance of an individual or group; examination._

They are testing her. Trish's smile is as much of a disguise as the Scarlet Pimpernel. This is a test, and she has been deemed 'uncooperative'. Hera doesn't know what that means. She knows more about the laws regarding entails than she knows about what is on the other side of the door.  


There are a lot of things she's going to need to learn about this world, and she's not sure how much 19th century science fiction is going to help her.

**Author's Note:**

> The ADORABLE cat-Eiffel is here: http://bubblymoth.tumblr.com/post/130136044190/bubblymoth-smilodonmeow-replied-to-your-posti


End file.
